The authorities in Turkey have launched a large-scale investigation after 25 kilograms of gold and 55 kilograms of silver with a total value of over 147 million Turkish liras (3 million euros) were found missing from an evidence warehouse in a court in the Istanbul district of Büyükçekmece, the website “Türkiye Today“ reported, quoted by BTA.
According to information from “Türkiye Today“ officials discovered the missing precious metals during an inspection of the warehouse safes, carried out following the long absence of their colleague who was responsible for storing the physical evidence.
According to information from the Turkish prosecutor's office, the main suspect in the missing evidence fled to London on November 19, and authorities have issued an arrest warrant and taken steps to extradite him back to Turkey. Meanwhile, another employee of the same court, who had worked temporarily in the warehouse immediately before the disappearances were discovered, has also been detained.
In his testimony to investigators, the detainee noted that numerous maintenance employees had entered and exited the evidence storage room, indicating that, in his opinion, only reviewing the security camera recordings could reveal what actually happened.
Authorities are continuing to investigate whether other employees were involved in the theft and how the precious metals were removed from the secured evidence room without being detected.